01 Approaching the Garden at Ryoan ji

This is part 1 of a 4-part video of the world famous Zen Garden at Ryoan-ji, Kyoto, Japan. It was perhaps the most inherently spiritual environmental experience that we have had in any of our world travels.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning in January. We had been to several other wonderful shrines that morning, but on the cab drive to Ryoan-ji, we saw what looked like falling ash on the windshield (being from Southern California, we recognize wildfire ash), but my brother, who lives in Denver, identified them, incredulously, as snow flakes. The incredulity came from the fact that it was still bright and sunny.

As we arrived, a gentle snowfall began in the outer gardens (part 1). By the time that we got to this most famous of Zen rock gardens, the entire garden was entirely deserted except for the three of us. We sat and watched the garden itself fill up with snow (part 2). We then walked to the rear and videoed the area behind the garden (part 3). Finally, we slowly left the park (part 4). In the forty minutes or so that we were there, we saw the garden fill with snow and then melt away to nothing. It was truly awesome—no words and no pictures can even begin to replicate the experience.

The original instrumental is "A Mouse in the Garrett (ala Amos Garrett)," a guitar solo from my 1979 collection, Instruments of Torture—Cruel and Unusual PUNishments. The pun is based on the name of the great lead guitarist who toured with Ian and Sylvia's Great Speckled Bird and played with Maria Muldaur, Paul Butterfield, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell. He is probably best known for his brilliant lead on Maria Muldaurs's "Midnight at the Oasis." This piece in no way approximates what he does on guitar, but it did hint at his style of sliding two or three notes at a time.

Please excuse the tape warble. It was taken from a thirty-year old, third generation cassette tape.

Along those same lines, the video is from a trip that my wife, Carolyn Swanson, and my brother, Kevin McMullen, and I took to Kyoto, in 1975. Kevin uploaded the VHS copy to DVD, and this version was uploaded from that copy. I then re-edited the video. I apologize for the digital artifacts, but the likelihood of searching out the original tapes and reediting are virtually nil. The resulting video is my compromise of expediency over quality.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Tim McMullen
• guitar
• improvisation
• Kyoto
• Japan
• Ryoan-ji
• Zen Garden
• snow
• snowfall
• travel
• rocks
• trees

[TimMcMullen]

Thanks a lot, Jan.

[bulbheadmyass]

Oh, that was magnificent, Tim. The music was perfect with the video.

[zenatural]

wonderful 5*****

[zenguitarblues]

beautiful music and video~what a fantastic zen Garden!